Problem: You have found the following ages (in years) of 6 sloths. The sloths are randomly selected from the 39 sloths at your local zoo: $ 17,\enspace 10,\enspace 1,\enspace 17,\enspace 11,\enspace 14$ Based on your sample, what is the average age of the sloths? What is the variance? You may round your answers to the nearest tenth.
Explanation: Because we only have data for a small sample of the 39 sloths, we are only able to estimate the population mean and variance by finding the sample mean $({\overline{x}})$ and sample variance $({s^2})$ To find the sample mean , add up the values of all $6$ samples and divide by $6$ $ {\overline{x}} = \dfrac{\sum\limits_{i=1}^{{n}} x_i}{{n}} = \dfrac{\sum\limits_{i=1}^{{6}} x_i}{{6$ To compensate for this underestimation, rather than simply averaging the squared deviations from the mean , we total them and divide by $n - 1$ $ {s^2} = \dfrac{\sum\limits_{i=1}^{{n}} (x_i - {\overline{x}})^2}{{n - 1}} $ $ {s^2} = \dfrac{{28.09} + {2.89} + {114.49} + {28.09} + {0.49} + {5.29}} {{6 - 1}} $ $ {s^2} = \dfrac{{179.34}}{{5}} = {35.87\text{ years}^2} $ We can estimate that the average sloth at the zoo is 11.7 years old. There is a variance of 35.87 years $^2$.